


The Beams Of Our Houses Are Cedars

by Annakovsky



Category: Big Love
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-20
Updated: 2006-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:06:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a lot of Henricksons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beams Of Our Houses Are Cedars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rm

 

 

_Reuben went in and slept with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard of it. -- Genesis 35:22_

Every Wednesday night, Ben goes over to Margie's to watch Project Runway -- they're the only ones in the family who like it, and by that time the babies are already asleep and Ben's done his homework and they have space to fully appreciate the excellence of Tim Gunn.

The Wednesday of the finale, Ben and Margie are stretched out with their heads at opposite ends of the couch and their feet bumping each other's hips, limbs all tangled together. It's a little chilly, so Margie's put a throw blanket over the middle of them, covering Ben's bare feet, and under it her body's warm against his.

Ben tries to concentrate on everybody's collections on the television, but ever since he slept with Brynne he can't get it out of his head, her naked body, the floor of her room, all of it mixed up with overwhelming waves of guilt. And now half on top of Margie like this, he can't help wondering what Margie looks like naked, what she feels like, and he doesn't know what's the matter with him, how he knows this is wrong but he can't stop thinking about it.

Tim Gunn says, "Carry on," and the show goes to commercial, and Ben blurts out, "I had sex with Brynne last week," before he has time to think about it.

Margie turns her head and blinks at him. "What?"

Crap. "What?" he says, hoping she didn't hear him.

"You had sex with Brynne?" Margie says. She looks really confused, like he just told her that he killed a dragon on the way home from school, like it's not a concept that adds up.

"Yeah," Ben says. "I know. I didn't mean to, it just happened."

"Oh," Margie says. She blinks a couple times, like she's trying to think of what she's supposed to say.

"That's not true," Ben says. His chest feels like it's seized up, thick with misery, and now that he's mostly told someone, he can't stop. "I meant to. I thought it would fix things, but it actually made everything worse."

"Oh, _Benny_ ," Margie says, so disappointed and sad and pitying, and she puts her hand on his bare foot under the covers.

"Don't tell my dad, okay?" Ben says, and the idea of his dad finding out makes him want to die.

Margie starts shaking her head. "I don't know," she says. Her thumb is rubbing his foot, and her hands are cold. "I don't know, Ben."

"Please?" Ben says.

Margie looks thoughtful, but before she can answer, the show comes back on. He pretends to go back to watching the fashion show, but he's really watching Margie, the light from the TV shifting over her face, wishing that if he had to lose his virginity to someone, that it had been her, and hating himself for wishing it.

***

_But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay." -- Ruth 1:16_

Margie's on her third day of babysitting for the Henricksons. She really wants to be good at it -- Mr. Henrickson was so nice to her when she got all frazzled in Customer Service, when she was sure she was about to be fired. The owner of the whole store acted like she mattered, like he was really concerned about her being okay at work, and she wants to be the best caretaker of his children she can possibly be. It's just that, between his three kids and Mrs. Henrickson's sister Nicki's two babies, it's kind of hectic over there. I mean, she likes it, it's just that the noise can start to get to you, and Wayne's started this habit of unrolling all the toilet paper whenever he can get at it, and Raymond's incredibly fussy. And she's had a bad day already, nothing in her life going right, and she already feels like one raw nerve.

Margie has ten minutes before Mrs. Henrickson -- Barb, she's supposed to call her Barb -- comes to pick her up, so she goes out to the parking lot to smoke a cigarette and try to relax. It's windy, the hot dry kind of wind that blows off the desert, and she has to cup her hand around the end of the cigarette to light it. She closes her eyes and inhales and thinks maybe she should go to Portland after all. She leans against the brick of the building and breathes out, tries to be zen or whatever.

"Margene!" she hears, and when she blinks her eyes open, Barb's just pulled up in their old station wagon and looking at her strangely. She's early.

"Shit," Margie mutters and drops the cigarette as unobtrusively as possible, tries to put it out with her toe without looking down and giving herself away. She puts on her friendliest smile. "Hi, Barb!"

She climbs into the car and as she puts her seatbelt on, Barb says, "I didn't know you smoked."

"Oh," Margie says. "Yeah, well. I'm trying to quit, actually. So I don't, very much, except...." She trails off, not knowing how to explain it.

Barb turns right out of the parking lot and pushes down on the accelerator. "Rough day?" she says, and she has this note of sympathy in her voice Margie wasn't expecting. All of a sudden Margie's on the brink of tears, because all her days have been rough lately, and she's worried about money, and dating and she has a little bit of a crush on Mr. Henrickson, even though he's married, and all her friends are moving away and she doesn't know what she's doing with her life, not at all.

"Yeah," she says, and her voice is all quavery, and she feels ridiculous.

"Oh, honey," Barb says, and she reaches over for Margie's hand and holds onto it, pressing her fingers tight into Margie's palm.

Neither of them say anything else for the rest of the drive, but Barb keeps hold of Margie's hand and Margie breathes deeply and holds on tight. It must be nice to have Barb for a mother, to be part of her family. That must really be something.

***

_How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! -- Song of Songs 4:10_

The first night of Bill and Margene's honeymoon, Barb's almost asleep when she hears the door of their room click open, a sliver of light falling across the bed and into her eyes. At first she thinks one of the kids had a nightmare, but then Nicki's voice says, "Barb?"

"Hmm?" Barb says, groggy, lifting her head up off the pillow.

Nicki's in a white nightdress, and her hair's loose around her shoulders, wavy from her braid, and she looks very young. "Can I stay in here with you tonight?" she asks. That's never happened before -- Bill's always been with one of them at night. But now Bill's with the third wife, third, Margene, and first and second are on their own.

"Sure," Barb says, and then Nicki's pulling back the covers on Bill's side of the bed and sliding in. She curls up on her side facing Barb, their faces close together on the pillows.

"It was a nice wedding," Nicki says.

"Mmhm," Barb says. Bill had looked very handsome in his suit, and Teeny was a flower girl, and Margie had looked so radiant and so very young in her white dress. And if Barb couldn't help feeling a little more displaced, a little more alone, she didn't show it.

"Another sister-wife," Nicki says, and sighs contentedly. "I'm glad we got a third."

"Are you?" Barb says. She's still half asleep and getting sleepier, and her head is heavy on the pillow.

"Of course!" Nicki says. "Aren't you?"

"Uh huh," Barb says, and yawns.

"She didn't just marry Bill," Nicki says, and she moves her arm, slings it around Barb's waist. She's inched closer, so Barb can feel her breath warm against her neck as Nicki cuddles up. "She married all of us. We're all married to each other. Joined for all eternity." Nicki nuzzles against Barb's shoulder, light touches of her nose and lips.

Barb reaches over and strokes her hair. "I know, Nicki," she says. Nicki's arm is just under her breasts, brushing the undersides, and Nicki's body presses against the whole length of Barb's, and Barb is joined to Nicki for all eternity. It's funny how sometimes that sounds like a threat.

Then Nicki starts to kiss her mouth with warm, sleepy kisses, and Barb's pretty sure that's not what being married to each other is supposed to mean, but she's tired and Bill's just married their babysitter, and Nicki's the only one who might be feeling the same way she is now, strange and empty.

Nicki's knee slides between Barb's, and her face is intent, the way she does everything, and Barb closes her eyes and touches Nicki's cheek, the soft skin there. Nicki kisses her again. They're the only adults in the house and everything is quiet.

***

_Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father. -- Genesis 19:32_

When Nicki was 15, her father married her best friend. Nicki wasn't surprised; Hannah had been over at their house almost every day since she and Nicki were in diapers, and lately Nicki had kept catching her father watching them while they played. Watching Hannah, that is; he never watched Nicki.

On their wedding night, after it got dark Nicki snuck up to the window of Hannah's new bedroom in their house, found a gap in the curtains she could see through. Hannah was in her nightgown in the bed and Papa was kissing her. Nicki watched as he pulled Hannah's nightie over her head (Nicki's breasts were nicer, she noticed) and rolled on top of her, kept watching until she felt a hard pull at her ear yanking her away.

"Nicolette Grant!" her mother said, and then she hauled Nicki back to the house, lecturing her all the while on appropriate behavior and snooping, and then Nicki got hit and sent to bed without supper.

In bed, in the dark, Nicki lay there thinking about her father and Hannah, half wishing Papa would look at her like that, wishing she could be alone with him like that, without a dozen sisters to fight for his attention. Hannah was lucky, Nicki thought. Not everybody got to be married to the Prophet. She hoped Hannah appreciated it.

***

_When King David was old and well advanced in years, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him. So his servants said to him, "Let us look for a young virgin to attend the king and take care of him. She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm." -- 1 Kings 1:1-2_

When Roman was a boy, they used to have recitals in school, of poetry and chapters of the Bible, soliloquies from Shakespeare. He doesn't think they do that anymore, even at Juniper Creek. But Rhonda likes to recite, as though she were a girl in his class a lifetime ago, Dickinson and Milton and modern playwrights, O'Neill and Beckett. She stands in front of him with her hands clasped and he listens to her sweet high voice, looks at the smooth skin of her cheeks, at the shape of her young body.

In bed she sings to him the songs they both grew up with, and he falls asleep to dream he's young again, until he wakes up his aching wrinkled body, a girl asleep on his pillow.

***

_Then, if I found you outside, I would kiss you and no one would despise me. -- Song of Songs 8:1_

Rhonda thinks Sarah is pretty, and she likes Sarah's room, her pillows and stuffed animals and teenager magazines, the whir of the air conditioning. She likes Sarah's friends and the way Sarah has to do what Rhonda wants.

"I was sad when you stopped visiting the compound," Rhonda says into the dark of Sarah's room, after they've gone to bed.

"Oh," Sarah says. She doesn't talk much when she's going to sleep, but Rhonda doesn't mind. Moonlight's coming through the blinds, lying in stripes on the floor.

"You're really pretty," Rhonda says next, and rolls over so she's on her stomach, facing Sarah's bed. She can just see Sarah's hand, hanging off the edge, pale and delicate.

"Um," Sarah says. "Thank you."

"Have you ever kissed a boy?"

"What?" Sarah says, and she rolls over too, but Rhonda still can't see her face. "Uh... no, I haven't, actually."

"I have," Rhonda says. "I could show you how." Sarah's very pretty, and she wears the kind of clothes girls shouldn't wear. Heather had kept asking Rhonda questions about things that don't matter, like politics, and trying to pretend she wasn't surprised when Rhonda didn't know, and Rhonda didn't like looking stupid in front of Sarah. She's not stupid about this, though -- this is something she knows more about than Sarah, and it's something important.

Sarah lifts her head off the pillow and stares down at Rhonda over the edge of the bed. "You could what?"

"Show you how," Rhonda says. "I don't mind."

"Show me how... to kiss?" Sarah says.

"Yes," Rhonda says.

"Oh," Sarah says. "Um, thank you for offering, but I think I'm okay."

Rhonda shrugs. She saw a movie once, where teenage girls who were friends kissed each other for practice. She wonders if Sarah and Heather ever kiss each other, and if Sarah just won't kiss Rhonda because they're not real friends. Only real friends kiss -- or, that's what Rhonda guesses. She doesn't have any friends, just sister-wives, and that's not the same thing.

***

_Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. -- 1 Samuel 18:1_

The night of the Mother of the Year ceremony, Sarah and Ben sit outside in the yard for a long time, not talking. There isn't really anything to say. They're still in their dress clothes, and Ben looks young and Mormon in his dorky tie.

"Are you going to call Jason?" Sarah asks.

Ben's watching the pool. A beach ball's floating in it, all alone. He shrugs. "Dunno. Do you think we're going to get arrested?"

Sarah's insides all clench up, even more than they already were. "I have no idea."

The sod Margie put down is starting to wither at the edges already, because nobody's thought to water it. Sarah always knew that experiment was doomed to failure.

"I'm going to call Heather," she says, and gets up, brushing dirt off her butt.

"Yeah, maybe her father can come take us away in his squad car. Get it over with," Ben says. He smiles weakly.

"That's not funny," Sarah says, and goes to find her phone.

Heather picks up on the first ring. "Hey," she says, her voice warm and friendly, and for a second Sarah can fall into it, feel wrapped up in caring, a little less lost. "How was the ceremony?"

Sarah opens her mouth to say what happened, but she can't think how to phrase it, and she realizes she doesn't actually want to talk about it, not at all.

"It was fine," she says. "Hey, are you busy?" Somewhere in the house, her mother is crying, deep sobs, muffled through the walls.

"Not really," Heather says. "Why, do you want to come over?"

"Yeah," Sarah says.

Up in Heather's room, Sarah can't settle, keeps walking back and forth, picking things up and putting them back down again.

"Sit down or something," Heather says from the bed. "You're stressing me out."

"Sorry," Sarah says, and puts down the My Little Pony she's fiddling with. She tries to hold still, but without meaning to she picks up a book and starts flipping the pages too fast to read any of the words.

When she glances over, Heather's watching her, a bemused expression on her face. "Is everything okay?" she asks.

"Yeah," Sarah says. She hits the end of the book, and flips it over to look at the picture on the back.

Heather gets up and comes over to her, gently takes the book out of her hand. "Sarah?" she says, in this way that's weirdly tentative. Her eyes look really wide.

It's been a long, bad night, and things are probably just going to get worse. Who knows what'll happen? Maybe they'll move and she won't ever see Heather again. Maybe this is the last chance she has, so she leans in, moves slow, gives Heather plenty of time to move away if she wants to. But Heather stays put.

Sarah kisses her slowly, a little awkwardly, and Heather kisses back. Sarah feels even more keyed up than before, but now the dread is mixed with something like delight, and she holds onto Heather's elbow to try to keep her arms still, keep herself from shaking. She feels like she's going to shake right apart, vibrate out of her skin, and she thinks Heather might be shaking too.

When they finally pull apart, Heather says, "What just happened?" But she's smiling.

Sarah shrugs and they look at each other, and a lot has happened for one night. A lot.

 


End file.
